Jan Bosch
When Western society to a large extent was religious, Christianity offered a ready-made framework for meaning and purpose. The promise of an eternal afterlife offers a powerful incentive to live life in a way that contributes to the community you’re part of. Humans have an internal moral framework and religion aligns with that framework in … Read more
Life at work, as well as outside of work, can be very surprising. Lots of unexpected and unwelcome things can happen. Interestingly, if you look at how modern society organizes itself, you realize that much of what we spend time and energy on is concerned with creating predictability in our lives. The houses we live … Read more
Over the last few years, I’ve enjoyed a steadily growing following on Linkedin. I’m very grateful for that, so thank you if you’re one of them. To understand what you and others like, appreciate and think about, I often read comments and, occasionally, engage in discussions to better understand your viewpoints. Based on this reading … Read more
The world of software remains a fascinating place and I keep being amazed at how rapidly it continues to evolve and transform. We certainly have come a long from the early 1980s when I was a teenager programming BASIC on my ZX81. Especially for those of us who have been in the field for decades, … Read more
For the longest time in the history of humankind, we lived in a world defined by scarcity. Forests for hunting, land for agriculture, wood for construction and mining sites – all were scarce resources that many wanted to have, and consequently, we competed. Individuals competed against individuals. Tribes competed against tribes. Nation-states competed against other … Read more
Little known fact: the original schools, started in the 19th century, had the goal of training obedient factory workers. The whole notion of sitting still at a desk, taking instructions and following orders was quite alien to many who had grown up on farms. For the factory owners to have access to workers, it was … Read more
When I was a teenager, I thought the pinnacle of professional success was being responsible for hundreds of people in an organization. My dad was a regional manager in a big supermarket chain in the Netherlands and had thousands of people working in his area of responsibility and my view of success might have been … Read more
One of the interesting facts uncovered by psychology is that people suffer three times as much from losing something they had as they enjoy getting something they didn’t have before. There are all kinds of convincing explanations coming out of evolutionary biology why this would be the case, but in the modern world, it easily … Read more
So, here’s a little puzzle for you: you have a piece of rope that just fits around the earth at the equator. You now add 1 meter long sticks all around the equator and put the rope on top of these sticks. How much longer do you need to make the rope? Of course, you … Read more
Humans are habit-driven creatures. Some research suggests that up to 95 percent of the day, the average human is purely on auto-pilot, executing according to the habits that have been built up over the years. Habits have many advantages, including not needing willpower to execute them, but of course, there are risks. The primary risk … Read more
